Stocks are poised to slip Friday -- the 20th anniversary of Black Monday -- with index futures lower after Thursday's flat session.Boosted in part by tensions between Iraqi Kurds and Turkey, oil prices topped an unprecedented $90 a barrel -- reaching $90.02 -- in after-hours trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange before settling in the mid $89s in Asia.
Reporting third-quarter results after Thursday's close, web giant Google (NASDAQ: GOOG) trounced analysts' forecasts of Q3 EPS $3.78, declaring EPS of $3.91 on 61% higher revenue over last year. A number of brokerages raised their price targets for GOOG in response, to as high as $900.
Companies declaring results Friday include Dow 30 components Caterpillar (NYSE: CAT), 3M (NYSE: MMM), and McDonald's (NYSE: MCD), as well as Xerox Corp. (NYSE: XRX), Wachovia Bank (NYSE: WB), and Harley-Davidson (NYSE: HOG).
Abroad, European bourses edged lower, but Japan's Nikkei tumbled 1.71% to 16,814.37.
No economic reports are due out Friday, though investors will tune in this morning to sift through Fed Chief Ben Bernanke's comments at the St. Louis Federal Reserve Bank's videoconference on "Monetary Policy Uncertainty," which begins at 9 a.m. EDT.
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